The Ministry of Justice Third Sector Conference made all the right noises in London last Thursday (4th March).
Our Chief Exec, Sally Reynolds, delivered a keynote speech at the Ministry of Justice Social Enterprise Conference last week. Calling for grant funding for Social Firm start-ups, Sally explained why the Social Firm model could help reduce re-offending by providing an alternative to the demoralising visit to the job centre an offender faces on release.
Social Firms UK’s Kathy Baker ran one of the workshops, Practical Solutions to Job Creation, where Greg Walker, CEO of CREATE UK and Brian McManus of Dee-tex gave brief presentations illustrating some of the ways in which ex-offenders are supported in the workplace.
Most of you will know CREATE’s work, as a long standing Social Firm, and Dee-tex are fairly new to the sector so they provided good examples and the workshop started to look at some of the challenges faced in employing ex-offenders and developing the business. However, with just 50 minutes there was not enough time to discuss the political and economic issues that need to be addressed collectively in order to achieve more employment for ex- offenders.
The conference proved to be very hands-on and promises increased access to Offender Management teams and commissioners who, in their bid to reduce re-offending, are looking for social enterprise to co-deliver holistic support services to offenders and ex-offenders.
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